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<title>don't act like you forgot (i call the shots) by dysprositos, forsyte</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24655120">don't act like you forgot (i call the shots)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/dysprositos/pseuds/dysprositos'>dysprositos</a>, <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/forsyte/pseuds/forsyte'>forsyte</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>It Hasn’t Been My Day, My Week, My Month, Or Even My Decade [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Ominous Tea Drinking, Technically canon-compliant, brief mention of urination, the consequences of workplace theft, threat of exit interview</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:47:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,178</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24655120</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/dysprositos/pseuds/dysprositos, https://archiveofourown.org/users/forsyte/pseuds/forsyte</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Return what is due, or what is due will be taken.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>It Hasn’t Been My Day, My Week, My Month, Or Even My Decade [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1782421</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>don't act like you forgot (i call the shots)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Am I supposed to just start—okay, yeah, yes. So.</p><p>For a living I clean and repair antique typewriters. A lot of people are surprised when they hear that’s a job, but actually it takes quite a bit of skill. You’ve got to have a sharp eye for the fiddly bits, and if you bend anything it comes out of your paycheque. That day was rough—someone brought in an old Olivetti, and it was wrecked all to hell. Took hours just to get the keys back into alignment. Poor thing looked like someone’d taken a hammer to it. Point being, I wasn’t much paying attention to my surroundings on the way home, and so I didn’t notice the guy at first. </p><p>He was tall, near two meters, all dressed up in black, and had long, straggly dark hair—too dark to be natural, I thought. Couldn’t say what caught my eye about him; he looked tired, but not scary or anything. Ragged around the edges, maybe, but not enough that I was watching out for him. It might have been the eye tattoos across his knuckles—I didn’t get a good look at them, but that must have <em> hurt. </em>I’ve seen weirder, though, and when I got a chance at a good seat with my back to him I didn’t hesitate or anything. Put him out of my mind, really.  </p><p>When I got off to head home, though, I felt a hand clamp down on my shoulder. I turned around, all ready to chew out whoever thought it was a good idea to grab me like that, and came face-to-face with him. The way he stared at me was… well, honestly pretty freaky, and I found myself shutting my mouth. </p><p>He said… I remember this clearly. He said, “Return what is due, or what is due will be taken.” </p><p>I’ve thought’ve plenty of things to say since then, of course. But back then, looking up at the guy, all I said was “What?” </p><p>He repeated himself, annoyed this time, and then—I swear there’s not ever much of a crowd around there, but he vanished into it somehow. One moment he was there, next moment he wasn’t, and it’s pretty hard to lose a guy that big. </p><p>I don’t know what made me think of it, but… I did have overdue materials, of a sort. See, back before my current job, I worked at the Magnus Institute for a while, and on a dare from my coworkers I’d checked out a statement. It was about catgirls—y’know, with ears and tails and all that. More to the point, it was about people physically turning into catgirls against their will. There was no sign of the photos mentioned in the file, but they were, apparently, stomach-turning. It was a pretty good story, and I’d gotten enough of a thrilling kind of disgust out of it that when I quit my job I took it with me. The Institute wasn’t paying for therapy or anything, you see, and so I figured I’d take my revenge where I could find it. Petty, I know, but it made a better conversation piece than my pal’s grand stapler theft. I didn’t think much of it at the time, and almost immediately after remembering I shook it off—it was just a piece of paper, after all. Just a weird coincidence.</p><p>Stupid of me, maybe, but not totally unreasonable<em>.  </em></p><p>A few days after that—a week, actually, to the day—I had another rough day at work involving a different case. A Remington, I think, filled with honey of all things, and getting it out was <em> hell</em>, the ants were—anyway. All I wanted to do when I got off was get home and take a shower.</p><p>When the door opened, though, my flat was dark. You have to understand, I always leave the light on. It’s a mess in there most days, and I’m not going to be the poor idiot who shows up in the headlines after tripping over a wrapper on the floor and breaking my neck. I’d never live it down. I figured it’d burned out, and made my careful way across the place to turn on the lamp, grumbling all the way. And then I turned, and there they were. </p><p>I’ll back up a bit. The goth guy from the tube was there, in my flat, behind the chair near the door, and sitting in the chair there was an old woman. Salt-and-pepper hair, wearing a pantsuit, holding the statement folder in one hand and a mug of tea in the other. My favorite mug, actually, and it—smelled like a tea I used to get, five years back, before the only shop that sold it closed for good, and it was steaming like hell. I mean, it must have been scalding, but she was cradling it like a wineglass. Absolute picture of poise. My eyes locked on the Archivist, sitting there calmly in my own damn flat, and I felt like if I blinked I would die. And then she said, “You never completed your exit interview.”</p><p>The goth rolled his eyes when I pissed myself, but Gertrude Robinson didn’t even wrinkle her nose. No, she just opened the file and started to read. I don’t know how long it took. I couldn’t tell you if I tried how many minutes I stood there, paralyzed, and waited for the moment when she’d finish the thing up and ask me exactly what I’d seen before I left the Institute, and then I’d have to answer. It felt like weeks. Somehow the story was worse in her voice. Don’t know if it was the way she read out every detail I’d skimmed or if it was how I was half-sure the last sentence of it would be the last sentence I ever heard, but I felt like the statement was happening to me, somehow.</p><p>She finished, and paused for a few moments, and just when I was sure she was about to do something terrible she said “I trust I’ve made my point,” and put down the tea, and left, the tall guy at her heels. She took the statement with her, and then it was just me, in my flat, in a damp shirt and wet trousers with honey all over my arms and the tea still steaming on a table. There was a tape recorder next to it. I hadn’t noticed it when I’d walked in. Maybe it hadn’t been there. </p><p>I haven’t touched it, I know I haven’t, but it turns up in different rooms sometimes, and I swear it’s turned itself on once or twice. I—I’m about to move flats. For a lot of reasons, really, but this was the last straw. I came here to tell you about it in hopes that it’ll leave me alone. Confessing my sins, or something. Probably sounds ridiculous if you haven't been here long, but... put in a good word for me with the new Archivist anyway?</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>finally, we post the fic we invented out loud to each other months ago<br/>have a favorite line? have a least favorite line? want to shake your fist at me? comments section below, or hit up me, forsyte, at <a href="https://morguecrow.tumblr.com/ask">morguecrow dot tumblr dot ask</a>. thanks for reading! hope you had as much fun as we did.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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